Sunday, November 22, 2009

Toffee Pecan Shortbread Cookies Recipe

These. cookies. are. delicious. End of Story. You must have these Toffee Pecan Shortbread Cookies on your holiday trays, or just make them because you need something yummy to eat! You know the classic Snowball Cookies, aka—Mexican Wedding Cookies and Russian Teacake Cookies? That’s pretty much these but kicked up a notch with toffee pieces. Delicious! I have also made these with just toffee pieces and mini chocolate chips. Also de-lish. But I forgot to photograph them and I gave them all away. Well, okay, I tasted one, too. ;)

I found the recipe/idea for these cookies at Susan’s Farmgirl Fare. I never realized Susan is just a hop, skip and a jump from me here, but I’ve been enjoying her photographic blog for a while now and she always has yummy food and recipes to share. Susan adapted this recipe for somewhere else, you can check out her link and see her shortbread cookies, too.

After making some just like hers, with the toffee and mini chocolate chips (and forgetting to photograph them), I decided to try them with toffee and pecans.

Hi, there, very yummy cookies!

I must tell you, these were very good with the mini chocolate chips, but I made some for my mom, who doesn’t eat chocolate and shipped them to her. And I meant to take half the dough with the toffee and pecans and add some chocolate chips, but alas, I forgot to do that. So I decided to dip some of the cookies in melted chocolate. They looked great and tasted even better!

I dipped a bunch of them half way in the melted chocolate (I used some of the Scharffen Berger chocolate they gave us at the Food BlogHer Conference in San Francisco in September—hello—amazing chocolate!) When I started running out of enough chocolate to keep dipping them, I drizzled a few with the remaining melted chocolate. Now I love a darn good chocolate chip cookie, you all know that, but these just might be right up there as one of my favorite cookies. And they are quite dangerous to have around! I love giving these away, saves me from having to do two hours on the treadmill every day instead of just one. Sigh.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

Cream the butter and powdered sugar together until smooth, 1-2 minutes. Beat in the vanilla, then add the flour and salt just until combined. Stir in the pecans, toffee (and chocolate chips, if adding).

Form into small balls (1/2 oz. each) and place on baking sheet. (They don’t spread too much, so you can do at least 20 per sheet.) I flattened them slightly with a flat glass lightly coated with powdered sugar, but you don’t have to do that.

Bake until the edges are just starting to brown, 12 to 15 minutes. (I baked mine 13:30 minutes.) Cool on wire rack. Melt chocolate in microwave safe glass dish in 15-20 second intervals, stirring in between each time, until smooth. Dip half of cooled cookies in chocolate. Set on waxed paper lined plate. Cool until chocolate is hardened. (I got 43 half ounce cookies.)

You know you want some of these! Oh and a very famous chef, Paige Vandegrift, (hehe) told me she likes to grind the pecans with the flour in a food processor to give them an even finer texture making them even more light and more tender and I can’t wait to try that sometime!

How funny, these are on my list to try, Ive seen them on a few blogs, and my sister actually made them and they were a huge hit. Yours look lovely. Cant go wrong with toffee and shortbread. Dipped in chocolate is a bonus.

I love this kind of cookies that a nice base for adding yummy stuff. And what could be better that toffee, pecan AND chocolate? The ones dipped in chocolate would be my favourite one (surprise!!!) Wait, did I get that right, your mom doen't eat chocolate?

I really love shortbread cookies, and the addition of toffee pieces sounds sooo good! I made some shortbread with pecans for Christmas last year, but I think these are going on the baking list for this year. I know they'll be a hit with my family!

I can't wait to try these! I'll have to give most of them away also because I LOVE toffee and I try not to make cookies that I LOVE because it's too much of a test of willpower not to eat them all myself.

Unknown, sorry your cookies are flat. My first guess would be if your butter was too warm. Do you measure your flour by weight? If your butter was too warm/soft, that could be the problem. Butter out of the fridge for only 20-30 minutes is just right. Only other suggestion is to make sure dry ingredients are measured (my preferred way is by weight with a kitchen scale.) Sorry. I've made them numerous times and have not had that issue.

Thank you Katrina for a quick response. I did zap my butter for about 10 seconds after it had been sitting out a while so it probably was due to the butter being too soft. I will definitely try and make these again. Thanks :)!

Oh my..what a great cookie! I made a double batch since I have 3 cookie eating boys..and I'm so glad I did. They are super easy to make, and so yummy good. I didn't coat any extra chocolate on them because I felt they were yummy enough without them! Froze them for Christmas cookies! So,so good!

Anne, they really are a perfect Christmas cookie!Jennifer Healy, I think they are totally fine wrapped and in an airtight container in the freezer. I just wouldn't do the chocolate until ready to plate/serve.

Carol, I have never made them with anything but the Heath toffee bits. They are usually in the baking aisle with other cookie mix-ins in most grocery stores. If you can find Heath rife candy bars, you can break those up into pieces.

They were great. Left some plain for non chocolate eaters.used Ghirardelli Dark melting wafers, which worked well. Flour and pecan pieces in food processor made very uniform pieces and also very light. Going to make another batch before Christmas.